Indoor Gardening Using LED Grow Lights

Nowadays, indoor gardening is becoming increasingly popular among many households because of its several benefits to the indoor environment. Aside from making your home more aesthetically pleasing, it also helps in making the environment more comfortable and serene both for your family and visitors. But how do we grow plants indoor? What are the supplies needed for creating an indoor garden? What are the important factors to consider in order for this project to become successful?

Essential Supplies for Indoor Gardening

We all know that plants require essential nutrients in order to grow. These may include food, water and sunlight. While food and water supplies are easily accessible even if you are growing plants indoor, sunlight on the other hand is relatively limited. In this case you need to find an alternative lighting system that can support the process of photosynthesis in plants. One of the best indoor lighting systems used for growing indoor plants nowadays are LED grow lights.

What is a LED Grow Light?

A LED grow light is an artificial lighting system available at a wide range of light wavelength levels. It works by nourishing plants with a number of red and blue diodes used for growing fruit-bearing plants, herbs and vegetables without causing any side effects. Compared with traditional horticulture system, this light gives you the power to nourish your plants even without using soil. It also shortens the growing period, giving you a tastier and fresher result more quickly than those grown in soil. In this website, you will learn more about LED grow lights and its major advantages.

Getting Started with Indoor Gardening

Growing plants indoor is not very complicated as long as you understand the right process and provide the essential ingredients to your plants. Below are the three basic things you will need for setting up your indoor garden:

• Indoor plants - To find the indoor plant for your particular project, all you have to do is to search via the Internet. Here you can find lots of different plants to choose from. While searching, do not forget to take note of their specific requirements. This will help you determine what appropriate level of light wavelength to use.

• Containers - Anything that can hold the plant you’ve chosen will work. You can use some clay pots or plastic cups, depending on the requirements of your plants. Whichever you decide to use, you have to make sure that they are clean, sterile and have good drainage to easily drain excess water away.

• Lighting System - As mentioned earlier, the best way to nourish your indoor plants with sufficient lighting is through the use of LED grow lights. When it comes to choosing what particular type of LED light to use, you need to measure your garden first and determine the required level of light wavelength. Read more on this topic to find the different choices available for you.

Indoor Gardening - Pests, Diseases, and More

There are many different types of pests and diseases that plants are susceptible to, and an indoor garden can fall prey to the same types of pests and diseases that outdoor gardens are. Paradoxically, the conditions in nature that may seem harsh to plants actually protect them from different insects. When growing an indoor garden, people typically grow herbs, flowers, and edible vegetation- such as tomatoes and peppers. These are all great plants to grow, and keeping them healthy and thriving is any grower's top priority.

The most common indoor gardening pests are aphids, caterpillars, earwigs, fungus gnats, and mealybugs- just to name a few. There are also spider mites, thrips, whiteflies, and some types of beatles that like to eat leaves and lay their larvae on plants roots. The most important step towards keeping your indoor garden pest and disease free is by thinking "prevention." Prevention is the best way to ward off those unwelcome and destructive creatures from weakening and killing your plants.

First, regularly clear away all debris and plant matter. Dead and decaying plant matter is excellent breeding ground for all sorts of pests to set up shop around your plants. Second, make sure you're keeping a close eye on any of your plants that you may think is infected. Remove them immediately. Third, keep your plants healthy by giving them adequate amounts of nutrition, sunlight, and clean air. This will help your plants combat diseases and pests as well. There are also many pest control sprays you can use that have low photo toxicity and discourage the growth of insects. SM-90 is a product that is available at the local hydroponics store. A root disease inhibitor, it is made from natural plant oils, and is bio-degradable. It's a great way to discourage those bugs from getting into your grow tent garden plants.

If you find that your garden has already been infected, and simply blasting the plants with water isn't doing much from keeping those aphids away, you may decide to use stronger measures. There are many natural products available. You can use insecticide soaps, Neem Oil, or herbal pesticides. These are products that are derived from natural ingredients, and do little damage to your plants or to the environment.

After taking preventive measures, using all-natural products, and doing everything right, in rare instances you may find that you have a raging pesticide problem. If this is the case, you can find a lot of chemical products that will do the job.

Indoor Gardening

Indoor gardening can be a rich and rewarding pursuit, and in and of itself is not overly difficult to begin. However, indoor gardeners have much more to consider than season and weather, because with indoor gardens, the gardener is responsible for maintaining all aspects of a healthy environment for the plants, from soil nutrition to sunlight supply, humidity to temperature, water supply to adequate drainage. When starting an indoor garden, the gardener may find that the plants, especially the delicate ones, need more than regular water and a window facing adequate sunlight. In this article, we will discuss the extra steps you can take to develop a healthy, well cared for indoor garden.

Indoor plants may have unique lighting requirements when kept inside. Besides that, with proper lighting you can extend your grow season for your indoor garden from seasonal to year round. The Hortilux grow bulb touts itself as one of the leading grow bulbs on the market, both for the variety of types of lighting available and for being environmentally friendly.

The Hortilux grow bulb can help your plants receive adequate light even away from consistent, natural sunlight supply, and the company offers grow bulbs in a variety of color spectrums, so that the gardener will be able to find a bulb specifically to meet the plant's specific needs.

Not only that, but this particular type of grow bulb can be especially valuable if you are trying to create an environmentally friendly garden. Because of the company's commitment to environmentalism, the Hortilux grow bulb uses less harmful materials, such as mercury, and consumes less power than other brands of grow bulbs.

Ultra Sun is another variety of popular metal halide conversion grow light. Many of these convert light to a blue spectrum, which is extremely healthy for some plants, but not all. Other brands of grow lights may provide more choice and variety for individual plants. However, the Ultra Sun brand has the advantage of being extremely durable and hardy. Plus, because of the intensity of the blue and violet spectrum light, these particular grow bulbs work very well for plants that will soon or have already begun to produce fruit and flowers. If you are looking to nourish a producing indoor garden, you may favor these bulbs.

The Galaxy Ballast is very useful if you are using grow lights to simulate natural sunlight supply as well. Rather than plugging your grow lights into the wall or a power suppressor, which can generate heat and may not be particularly efficient, the Galaxy Ballast acts as a small generator that you can plug your grow lights into. It's construction protects your grow lights from power surges and spikes, plus keeps the plugs and internal parts cooler to prevent heat buildup and keep your equipment functioning longer.